SIGGRAPH 2000 offers an impressive lineup of five Special Sessions, representing a cross section from Art & Culture Papers to Phil Tippett's History of Animation to a high-tech shoot-out at the Web3D RoundUP. Fiction 2001, a sequel to last year's provocative session, and Industrial Light + Magic's The Making of "The Perfect Storm" complete the Special Session list.

Art & Culture Papers
Three art and culture papers present cutting-edge questions about the role of computer graphics and interactive techniques in todayís art and culture. Speakers consider the changing roles of technical tools (artificial intelligence practices), popular cultural forms (science fiction), and long-standing philosophical issues (the distinction between an idea and its representation) in a world of computer visualization, biotechnology, net.art, and the melding of art and technology for cultural production
Moderators
Noah Wardrip-Fruin, New York University
Diane Gromala, Georgia Institute of Technology
Papers/Speakers
"Digital Ontologies: The Ideality of Form in/and Code Storage - or - Can Graphesis Challenge Mathesis?" Johanna Drucker, University of Virginia
"Expressive Artificial Intelligence," Michael Mateas, Carnegie Mellon University
"The Science Fiction of Technoscience: The Politics of Simulation & A Challenge for New Media Art,"
Eugene Thacker, Rutgers University

Fiction 2001
What is the future of Fiction? Members of the graphics, interaction, literature, and arts communities give their answers . . . and imagine the shape of fiction in the emerging realms of networked computers. Following up on 1999's highly successful session, new speakers engage in a roundtable discussion with last year's participants.
Organizers/Moderators
Diane Gromala, Georgia Institute of Technology
Noah Wardrip-Fruin, New York University
Panelists
Andrew Glassner, Consultant
Espen Aarseth, University of Bergen and
Brown University
Jesse Schell, Walt Disney Imagineering
Phoebe Sengers, GMD Media Arts Research Studies
Ana Serrano, Canadian Film Centre
Michael Joyce, Vassar College
Adrianne Wortzel, City University of New York, and
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
Jay Bolter, Georgia Institute of Technology

Phil Tippett's History of Animation
The History of Animation Special Session will be a history of visual effects from Phil Tippett's unique perspective, based on his extensive experience developing creatures and characters for feature films. From his beginnings at Cascade Studios animating the Pillsbury Doughboy, to becoming the head of a full service digital animation studio, using examples from his work in many feature films, Tippett will trace the development of animation from stop-motion to computer graphics. The Oscar winning VFX Supervisor will also discuss the influences of other artists on his work and the challenges of running a digital studio in the current marketplace.
Presenter
Phil Tippett, founder of Tippett Studio